Something flashed across Borkins’s face, and was gone again.  He cleared his throat nervously before replying: 

“I felt on me honour to—­Sir Nigel, sir,” he returned at length.  “A man stands by his master, you know—­if ’e’s a good one; and though we’d ’ad words before, I didn’t bear ’im no malice.  And I didn’t want the old ’ouse to come to disgrace.”

“So you waited until things looked a little blacker for him, and then decided to cast your creditable scruples to the wind?” said Cleek, the queer little one-sided smile travelling up his cheek.  “I take it that you had had what you term ‘words’ since that fatal date?”

Borkins nodded.  He did not like this cross-examination, and his nervousness was apparent in voice and look and action.

“Yes, sir.”

“H’m.  And if we put that to one side altogether can you give me any reason why I should believe this unlikely story in place of the equally unlikely one that your master has told me—­knowing what I do?”

Borkins twitched up his head suddenly, his eyes fear-filled, his face turned suddenly gray.

“I—­I—­What can you know about me, but that I ’ave been in the employment of this family nearly all my life?” he returned, taken off his guard by Cleek’s remark.  “I’m only a poor, honest workin’ man, sir, been in the same place nigh on to twenty years and—­”

“And hoping you can hang on another twenty, I dare say!” threw in Cleek, sarcastically.  “Oh, I know more about you, my man, than I care to tell.  But at the moment that doesn’t enter into the matter.  We’ll take that up later.  Now then, there’s the revolver.  Doctor, you should be useful here; if you will use your professional skill in the service of the law that seems trying to embroil your friend.  I want you to examine the head wound, please—­the head wound of the man called Dacre Wynne, and, if you can, remove the bullet that is lodged in the brain.  Then we shall have a chance to compare it with those remaining in Sir Nigel’s revolver.”

“I—­can’t do it, Mr. Headland,” returned Doctor Bartholomew, firmly.  “I won’t lend myself to a plot to inveigle this poor boy, to ruin his life—­”

“And I demand it—­in the name of the Law.”  He motioned to Petrie and Hammond, who through the whole length of the inquiry had stood with Dollops, beside the doorway.  They came forward swiftly.  “Arrest Doctor Bartholomew for treating the Law with contempt—­”

“But, I say, Mr. Headland, this is a damned outrage!”

Cleek held up a hand.

“Yes,” he said, “I agree with you.  But a very necessary one.  Besides”—­he smiled suddenly into the seamed, anxious face of the man—­“who knows but that bullet may prove Sir Nigel’s innocence?  Who knows but that it is not the same kind as lie now in this deadly little thing here in my hand?  It lies with you, Doctor.  Must I arrest him now, and take him off to the public jail to await trial, or will you give him a sporting chance?”